The parable of the Good Samaritan is, of course, one of the most well known. As with all the parables, however, it is not enough to know the story; we must also know the context. Our Lord gives the parable in response to "a scholar of the law who stood up to test him" (Lk 10:25), who "wished to justify himself" (Lk 10:29). He speaks to a lawyer who has no real interest in the truth, who wants to spar over legal texts for his own purposes. The man's questions are self-serving, not sincere. This explains why our Lord deals so abruptly with him. We do not sense in our Lord any of the gentleness and patience shown to others. Ultimately our Lord addresses to this man — and to everyone who wants to test God and justify himself — the parable of the Good Samaritan, a parable intended not to console and comfort but to shock and challenge.
The parable answers the lawyer's question "Who is my neighbor?" — a cynical question meant to validate his narrow interpretation of the commandment to love one's neighbor. Knowing this, our Lord seeks to call him out of himself, to deliver him from his selfishness. So he chooses a figure guaranteed to shock: a good Samaritan. Recall that the Israelites and the Samaritans, while geographically more than neighbors, were far less than neighborly. Their mutual enmity had simmered for centuries. To the lawyer, the Samaritans were worse than foreigners. By the choice of such a protagonist our Lord intentionally scandalizes the lawyer. He shocks this complacent and self-serving man into a genuine understanding of love for neighbor.
The parable itself contains several different lessons.
First, it presents the Samaritan as a neighbor — to show that we ought not set limits to our charity. We can never say of our love "Thus far and no further." It must extend even to our enemies.
Second, the parable presents the Samaritan as the exemplar of love for neighbor, to show that God's grace extends beyond Israel, enabling even Samaritans to love as He commands. Finally, the story heightens the meaning of "neighbor." The lawyer begrudgingly acknowledges that the true neighbor was the "one who treated (the robbers' victim) with mercy" (Lk 10:37). To be a neighbor, then, means not to measure stingily another person's degree of relation but to treat that person with mercy. The lawyer (and we) should worry less about who his neighbor is and more about being a neighbor to all.
Thus the parable provides an inspiring standard of love for neighbor. And the saints continue to teach the lesson. St. Patrick returns to Ireland to evangelize the people who enslaved him. St. Francis tries to convert the Sultan at war with Christendom. And St. Maria Goretti prays for her murderer while dying.
But the parable also carries a great deal of shock value. Two thousand years distant, we tend to miss how scandalous the use of a Samaritan example must have been. And in this regard we can discern still another, more basic, lesson. The lawyer's mistake haunts us as well: we come to the Lord to test Him and to justify ourselves. We seek His endorsement of what we have already decided, rather than first asking what He wants. Instead of conforming our lives to Him, we first establish our lives and then try to fit Him in. And if we have to chisel away some of our Lord's more demanding features so that He can fit into our small, confined lives, then so be it. Thus our Lord's shocking response to the complacent lawyer should also draw us away from any self-serving devotion.
The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches that our love must be generous, sacrificial, extending even to our enemies. But on a more basic level its shocking character teaches us to set aside our own notions of who and how to love, and allow the Lord Himself to instruct us.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.